ROANOKE, Va. – Wednesday morning will feature mostly cloudy skies, with temperatures ranging between 40 and 50 degrees.
Mostly cloudy skies will offer a break in the warm weather we’ve been seeing the past couple of weeks. Most of Southwest and Central Virginia stays in the 50s for the day, with a few spots warming into the 60s.
Wednesday’s winds will also increase hour by hour. Gusts will reach as high as 20 mph, with sustained winds near 5-10 mph.
On Wednesday, we will see cooler and cloudier weather because of the setup. An area of high pressure just to our north and west is funneling in cool air from up north that will bank against the mountains. Cloud cover and winds result as the air tries to flow toward the area of low pressure to our west.
A rare level 5/5 high risk is in place for our neighbors just to our west. Strong tornadoes, gusty winds, hail and heavy/significant rainfall are expected across the Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio Valleys.
The front moves east later Wednesday evening and pushes closer as we head into the night.
There is a chance for some storms to move into parts of the Highlands and New River Valley on Thursday, but eventually, the front breaks down and stalls.
This will bring impressive rainfall amounts to the same areas that will experience severe weather on Wednesday. Historic amounts of rainfall are likely for some. As for us, we see between a quarter of an inch to an inch of rain at most through the end of the week.
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